By TJ Vickers
Contributor
Suwannee Middle School (SMS) and Suwannee High School (SHS) held their annual Future Farmers of America (FFA) Fall Round Up at the Don Boyette Land Lab on Thursday, Oct.15.
The evening began by announcing the officers for the middle school, junior chapter and senior chapter. Middle school officers are: Jordan Chanuncey (Historian), Cade Cannon (Parliamentarian), Noah Garrison (Chaplin), Cooper Lee (Sentinel), Courtney Taylor (Reporter), Kate Kirby (Secretary), Zabrina Castro (Vice-President) and Whitton Musgrove (President). Junior chapter officers are: Landon Bates (Sentinel), Mary Crutchfield (Reporter), Cambree Poole (Treasurer), Aubrey Repport (Secretary), Shelby Crossou (Vice-President) and Kati Taylor (President).
Senior chapter officers are: Gracie Fletcher (Parliamentarian), Grant Baker (Chaplin), Paisley Stapleton (Sentinel), CaliAnn Daniel (Reporter), Maddie Carte (Treasurer), Bryan Bailey (Secretary), Tyler Hamilton (Vice-President) and Morgan Larney (President).
President Larney called the meeting to order and Vice President Hamilton spoke about the improvements to the program. Hamilton mentioned they recently planted and harvested corn to grind into cattle feed for their herd. Hamilton also said they are close to grinding cane again to make their homemade cane syrup. When speaking about the cane grinding process, Hamilton said, “They are great teaching experiences and allow every student, despite their backgrounds, become involved in agriculture.”
Reporter Daniel updated the crowd on the Career and Leadership Development Events the programs are planning to compete in this year. Daniel said, “As usual, we are competing in land, livestock, meat, vegetable, poultry, forestry and dairy judging. We will also be competing in ornamental horticulture demonstrations and have members competing in prepared public speaking, extemporaneous public speaking and creed speaking. Some of the new competitions we plan to compete in this year are food science and agribusiness. We are thrilled to be adding more competitions to our very busy chapter. We appreciate both of our advisors' efforts in planning practices and preparing us for success.”
Treasurer Carte spoke to the Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAE’s) the program excelled in last year. Numerous winners came from the program including: CaliAnn Daniel (state finalist in Agriculture services), Katelyn Floyd (state finalist for feeder steer), Kenzie Kimball (state finalist for feeder steer), Kati Taylor (state finalist for feeder steer and wildlife management) and Brent Long (state winner in specialty crop production division).
Concluding the updates, a cake auction was held with all the proceeds going towards the programs. In total, over $8,600 was raised by the cake auction.